


Love Has Been Waiting

by sirrylot



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-War, M/M, really vague sexual content, the end is kind of predictable if you know anything about Web, they're stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirrylot/pseuds/sirrylot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight formative moments in the shared life of David Kenyon Webster and Joseph Thaddeus Liebgott.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Has Been Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> this one is for [Rowan](http://www.incurably.tumblr.com), who beta'd and is also my girlfriend.
> 
> and shoutout to [Lena](http://www.salsastarks.tumblr.com) because it was her fanmix that spawned this, specifically the song "The Ballad of Love and Hate" by The Avett Brothers, which we have to thank for the title and the fic itself.

**i.**

The first time Joe sees David Webster is on the ship to England.

The first thing Joe says is, “Hey, you’re that college boy, right?”

Webster lifts his head and closes his notebook, giving Joe a cordial smile. “Since that’s what everyone refers to me as, yes, I am. I’m David Webster.”

Joe gives him a toothy grin and holds out a hand. “Joe Liebgott, nice to meet you, Web.”

A furrowed eyebrow and a slight frown. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me ‘Web.’”

“Why not?” Joe asks. He lifts himself onto Webster’s hammock without warning, sitting pressed up against him and looking cheeky. In a low and mocking voice he says, “Bad childhood trauma?”

Web carefully reigns in his growing irritation in favor of speaking civilly. “No, I just don’t like the nickname. Call me David or Webster, just not that.”

Joe shakes his head, looking deeply amused. “Well, looks like you and I are going to have some trouble getting along then, eh, Web?”

Webster slides off his hammock and gives Joe a glare he hopes is at least slightly threatening. “I guess we will.”

Even as he pushes through the crowd to get away, he can hear Joe’s laughter ringing in his ears.

**ii.**

Aldbourne is where they become something. Aldbourne is Webster angrily stalking away from Liebgott after every conversation, followed immediately by Liebgott’s smug smile. Taking piss shots at Webster gives Liebgott some sort of pleasure, he knows, but that doesn’t stop Web from falling for every trick and every word and acting like he’s five. To be completely fair, Liebgott is a lot more immature than Web will ever be.

Aldbourne also forces them to quarter with the same family and in the same room. There are two beds, but that doesn’t stop them from stepping all over each other and having a pointed disregard for any sense of privacy or personal space. To anyone, their actions spoke comfort. To them, it spoke of annoyance and an obvious war on each other’s persons and belongings.

Liebgott’s personal vendetta against Webster was complex and confusing and Webster honestly has no interest in decoding in. Instead, he fights back and tries to go on with his life. It shouldn’t have been hard when they ran in different social circles back in civilian life _and_ had widely different interests outside of being paratroopers, but Liebgott invades every aspect of his life and Aldbourne becomes synonymous with _Joseph Liebgott_ and _you’re such a goddamn nuisance._

More than anything, though, something significant starts in Aldbourne. Neither is sure what it is, and neither of them are willing to admit to it, but meeting and speaking and rooming together does something to both of them. There’s an undercurrent of secrets and the overt hostility toward each other. No one else is really sure what to make of it, them at the very least.

Years later, they’ll realize that Aldbourne was their beginning.

**iii.**

Hagenau spells the denouement of the war.

Hagenau is where Webster returns from the hospital, finding half of his friends dead and gone and the other half violently ostracizing him. He thinks he should be mad at them for this, but he knows they have more than every right to be angry at him—he had the ability to go AWOL, he could have been there for Bastogne and Foy and everything in between and after. He _could_ have and _should_ have been there while Toccoa men fell, while Easy cracked and fractured and fell apart.

He should have been there for Joe.

Joe sneers at him and calls him pretty in a sarcastic voice. He’s skinnier and paler than Web remembers, and Web can hear him toss and turn all night when—back in Aldbourne—Web knows he used to sleep like the dead. Joe smokes more than Web thought possible, stands close to whoever they have left—Babe, Doc, Alley, Malarkey, sometimes even Winters or Nixon—and doesn’t speak more than he really has to. There are circles under his eyes and he holds his rifle with white knuckles and grit teeth.

He laughs at Web and his jumpiness more than once, but Web doesn’t miss Joe’s reaction to every mortar whistle, to every bombing. He doesn’t jump and doesn’t have a panic attack, but his eyes are wide and terrified, and every dead man and every destroyed building pushes Joe further and further in himself.

He gives Web a sarcastic wink when Web inadvertently gets him off the first patrol, and Web doesn’t know how to feel. Mostly, he’s glad he managed to get Joe out of another potentially bad situation, even if it means putting himself in danger. He doesn’t let his irritation and Joe’s inherent thickness get to him.

Honestly, there was nothing Web wanted more than to help Joe out, but the bad note they had left on turns him in a different direction. Not to mention that Joe’s hostility has increased tenfold and Web isn’t sure how to say hello without something caustic being thrown in his face.

(And he knows he deserves it, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys being treated like a replacement by people he used to call friends.)

So, on the night of their second patrol—the night that Winters solidifies himself as the best CO any company could ask for—Web corners Joe.

The basement of the bombed out house they’re staying in is empty, everyone seeking celebration booze elsewhere. Web doesn’t wait for Joe to say anything when he drags the smaller and, now, weaker man into the basement.

(In hindsight, Joe probably thought he was about to be murdered which, okay, would have been a fair assumption. But he should have known Web wasn’t exactly one for murderous tendencies despite all the emotional evidence that said otherwise.)

“What the hell, Web?” Joe asks the moment Web lets go of his arm. He rubs at the offending area and glares, not even attempting to be subtle as he backs up and angles himself near the stairs for a quick getaway.

“I’m sorry.” Web says without preamble.

Joe pauses at that, still rubbing his arm, though Web suspects it’s more to comfort himself than anything at that point. Then again, he could never really pinpoint how Joe Liebgott was feeling at any point in time, let alone read him in any manner.

“I’m sorry.” Web repeats, not hiding the pleading quality to his voice. “I’m sorry for not leaving the hospital like I could and should have, I’m sorry for not being there for Hoobler, I’m sorry for not being willing to die for you and for everyone else, I’m sorry for not being as dedicated to Easy as I should be. I’m sorry you were at Bastogne and had to watch guys you spent the last two and half years with die. I’m sorry for this entire _fucking_ war and I’m sorry I can’t do anything to make you stop taking verbal shots at my head every time I open my mouth.”

There’s a pause, then Joe snorts.

“Don’t fucking apologize, Web.” He says. “I’m not interested.”

“But I just _did_.” He replies, desperation coloring his tone. “Dammit, Joe, why can’t you just tell me what’s wrong instead of skirting around it?”

Joe gives him an incredulous look and takes a step forward, his fists now clenched at his sides. “You have no right to fuckin’ force me to _talk_ to you. We’re not even _friends_.”

“Then at least explain to me why you hate me so much, because I’m really sick of being treated like this, even by you.”

Joe laughs, then, loudly and with a twinge of hysteria. “You think I—” He laughs again, shaking. “You think I hate you? They _really_ don’t teach much at Harvard, do they?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” There’s anger and annoyance at Joe Liebgott’s existence boiling deep inside him, and it takes him at least five breaths to calm down enough not to storm away again. How Joe always manages to get him like this within seconds will always be a mystery.

Joe is still laughing, except now he’s taken three steps forward and is directly in Web’s personal space. “And I thought you couldn’t get any dumber.”

Web manages to get out a, “What are you—” before Joe kisses him.

Joe is honest-to-God _kissing_ him.

On his list of “life experiences that can be drawn from war,” kissing someone of the same gender was definitely not on there. Kissing _Joe Liebgott_ was never even on his radar of possibilities.

Of course, that doesn’t stop him from enjoying it.

Joe kisses like he talks—rough, angry, bitter, and with no thought or regard for any other parties involved. Web really can’t bring himself to mind too much, especially when Joe pushes him hard enough that they’re stumbling over some chairs and, eventually, has Web pressed up against a wall. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Web stops thinking and instead grips Joe’s elbows to pull him closer, tingling where Joe’s hands are on his and in his hair, and where his lips are crudely moving against Web’s own.

Somewhere, deep inside him, Web knows this is wrong and could constitute not only a court martial but probably getting booted out of the Airborne completely. He knows kissing another man is frowned upon, but he just doesn’t _care_ —not when it feels so good.

And, honestly, caring about anything but Joe Liebgott when Joe Liebgott is kissing you and touching you and being uncharacteristically gentle and rough at the same time, well, Web kind of forgets about everything that isn’t Joe.

It’s a wonderful feeling.

**iv.**

Their last encounter is in Zell am See, Austria, kissing goodbye behind a cluster of trees by the lake everyone had taken to swimming in. They’d held each other and moved together in perfect harmony. Web had hoped Joe would understand what he was trying to say just through his kisses and touches—through the way Web traces shapes on his back, the bites he trails along Joe’s neck, the way he holds Joe close even an hour after they’ve finished.

But when the sun rises, they dress silently and walk without a word back to the rest of Easy. They hold each other’s gaze for all of ten seconds before turning in opposite directions.

They don’t speak or look at each other again after that. Not on the truck, not on the ship, not on the docks with crying women and American flags every which way.

The last words Joe says to him are, “You’re not so bad, David.”

The last words Web says to Joe are, “Thanks.”

**v.**

Joe shows up on Web’s doorstep two years later.

Web never made it a secret that he would move to Santa Monica after the war, especially around Joe. If there’s a not-so-surreptitious part of him that wanted Joe to follow him one day, find him, tell him everything he’d been holding in whenever they kissed, well.

Well, who can blame him?

“I’m sorry.” Joe says without preamble.

He’s more filled out, better rested, but he looks just as sad as he did back in Hagenau, Landsberg, Zell am See.

Joe’s hands are stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders are hunched, but he’s holding Web’s gaze resolutely, maintaining the essence of Joe Liebgott in that alone.

It takes a moment, but Web stops gaping long enough to force out a broken and quiet, “I missed you.”

Joe shifts, uncomfortable, before clearing his throat and asking, “Can I come in?”

Web steps aside.

In the foyer, then, of Webster’s little seaside cottage—bought with his own money, painted and decorated and furnished with his own hands and ideas—they stare at each other. The silence slides somewhere between comfortable and awkward, but, mostly, Web is scrambling for something to say. Namely, something that won’t have Joe turning and leaving straight away.

After a long stretch of absolutely nothing, Web throws caution to the wind and closes the already small amount of space between them, kissing Joe solidly.

It’s nothing like their first kiss. There’s no anger or bitterness or recklessness involved, at least not in the kiss itself. There is more desperation than Web ever remembers kissing Joe with, there is longing and regret and all roughness is replaced with a gentleness that surprises them both.

Hours later, tangled and tired and happier than he’s been in two years, Web mouths vague words against Joe’s skin.

“What the hell are you going on about now?” Joe asks, his usual aggression replaced with sleepiness and a lazy smile that contradicts his words. He runs his fingers through Web’s hair, tugging and twisting and on the verge of braiding it.

Web lifts his head and presses his lips together, taking in Joe’s expression, Joe’s body language. He has to remind himself that Joe was the one to come find him in the first place.

He says, “I love you.”

Joe’s hand freezes in his hair and lifts his eyes to meet Web’s.

“You don’t have to say it.” Web says quickly. “Just—don’t leave. Alright?”

“Yeah.” Joe finally says, voice thick. “Yeah, I won’t leave. Don’t worry.”

**vi.**

A year later, watching the stars and tracing swirls on Web’s stomach, Joe says with the silence of a clear day, “I love you, too.”

**vii.**

They fight some twenty years later.

Neither of them remembers what it’s about when it’s all done and over with, but they’re both angry beyond belief, and they haven’t been this way since the war. It’s their first serious fight since moving in together and it’s the fight where something is thrown and Web storms out of the house he and Joe unofficially share and ignores Joe’s yells to stop acting like he was goddamn twenty-two again. Web ignores him, already headed straight for the dock where his beloved _Currahee_ is moored.

“ _David_.” Joe says, almost begging, as Web prepares _Currahee_ to set sail. He’s standing behind Web on the dock and they’ve been done fighting for twenty minutes now. Time doesn’t help Web’s ire. “Stop, c’mon. I’m sorry. We can talk it out; we don’t have to act irrational anymore, c’mon.”

Web is seething, trembling with anger. He doesn’t turn around, but he does say (and if his voice is shaking and he can’t properly untie the knot he’d tied just yesterday after their picnic, well), “Just give me some time.”

“It’s not safe out there, especially when you’re like this.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’ve been sailing this boat for almost twenty years, Joe, I can definitely do it calmly _and_ angrily.”

“David, dammit, just _think_ for a second. This doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

He drops the rope, ignoring the sea gulls that squawk and fly away in protest when it thuds and clangs loudly. He forces himself to look at Joe, to speak without going off on an angry tangent that will get them nowhere. His voice trembles only a little. “I’ll only be gone for a few hours. I’ll be fine.”

Joe’s expression is a cross between deep concern and the lingering anger, but his voice is even when he asks, “How many is a few?”

“I don’t know.” Web says with exasperation. “Two or three, I guess.”

“Two.” Joe says firmly.

He barely resists rolling his eyes, not all too willing to point out how Joe’s protectiveness is annoying in any normal situation, but especially so when they’re still angry at each other. “Two hours, Joe. I just need to clear my head.”

Joe crosses his arms. “Fine. I’ll see you in two hours, then.”

“ _Fine_.”

Joe hovers, silent, as Web finally gets his boat unmoored and started.

Fifty yards out, Web twists to face the dock. Joe is still there, waiting and watching, and neither of them say anything, instead holding each other’s gaze over the growing stretch of water. Above, the sun blankets them and, around, the ocean is calm, the weather in its entirety going against the events of the day.

Finally, Joe becomes too small to distinguish from the beach around him, and Web turns forward. He breathes in the ocean, already mentally grappling for the words to describe the oxymoronic nature of the day and the man he’d been loudly arguing with since breakfast.

Exhaling slowly, he settles and is glad, not for the first time, to have a second home in the ocean.

**viii.**

Joe knows as soon as Web is out of sight that something is wrong.

When he’s proven right more than twenty-four hours later, he destroys their kitchen.


End file.
